


The Epileptic's Guide to Secret Love and Hidden Disease

by Blestidious_Snoftly



Category: The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue Series - Mackenzi Lee
Genre: 18th Century, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Babysitting, Epilepsy, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Love Confessions, M/M, My First AO3 Post, Not Canon Compliant, Oral Sex, Percy is a Dork, Sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-20 10:20:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22182349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blestidious_Snoftly/pseuds/Blestidious_Snoftly
Summary: Percy Newton has never been a rule-breaker. He keeps his head down, and trusts in the system. Until his best friend is beaten within an inch of his life for liking lads, and until his Uncle tells him his epilepsy is incompatible with a life outside an asylum. Quiet Percy has no choice: he must fight the system that would both destroy Monty, and send himself away for life. A canon-divergent ode to secret-keeping, mutual pining, and trying to survive a world of harsh and arbitrary rules.
Relationships: Henry "Monty" Montague/Percy Newton
Comments: 12
Kudos: 43





	1. A tightly held secret and it's subsequent confession

"Hi, Monty." God, I'm nervous. Have I ever been this thirsty? Or this warm, for that matter? I didn't think so. _This is important,_ says my inner monologue, _remember to breathe, and keep going._ So I don't stop, even though I really want to.

"I need to tell you something. It's not urgent, everything's fine, better than fine, really, I just wanted to tell you... I wanted to say that I like the thing you've done with your hair lately." Damn it. Hastily, I try to repair. "No, that's not it. Well it is, but, I mean I like the thing you're doing with yourself." I flush, shake my head, kicking myself for my lack of charm. Monty's the delicate one. He could seduce the wings off a fly. He could-- no, the pause is too long SAY something Percy goddamn it you've PRACTICED this-- "I like that you've never met a stranger, and the way you go out of your way to make people comfortable. I like your smile, even if it's so intense sometimes it feels like it bruises my chest. It looks even better since it got lopsided, I promise.

I like how you figure things out, and how brave you are. You do anything that needs done. In conclusion, you're the best and bravest man I have ever met, Monty. And I... er... care loads for you."

  
I let out a shaky breath. Mr. Montague does not offer compliment or criticism to my speech. He gums a rattle absently. It's nerve-wracking every time I practice it, but it has proven rather effective at getting him to stop crying. The baby stares up at me with a doubtful look that is so uncannily like his brother's that I have to blink tight and look again. He emits a squeak, arms up, and I hoist him into my arms, bouncing gently.

Mrs. Montague pops her head in a few moments later, just as he's starting to drift off. "Bless you," she mouths, before disappearing again into the vast reaches of the big house.

I press a kiss to his soft baby forehead. Monty calls him a goblin, and though I understand why he would-- since birth, the baby has taken the biggest part of his mother, leaving him with the short sharp ends of her exasperation-- but I could never hate anything that looks up at me with eyes so like the ones I love so much. He snuggles into my shoulder, and I gently lower myself into the rocker. Monty should be awake anytime now, it's past noon and the sun hasn't been shy since seven, when the clouds had melted into a truly lovely September day.

"Monty, I need to tell you something," I begin again, whispering into the soft seashell of the baby's ear. "I think I'm in love with you." And despite the gravity of the statement, the baby keeps sleeping, the chair keeps rocking, and I try and catch my breath.


	2. Five little marks, one big idea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: implied physical abuse!!!!
> 
> But I'm not in this to break hearts folks
> 
> Finally decisively placed in the timeline

"Good morning, darling." I nearly leap out of my skin, the rocker giving a protesting creak. Adrian snuffles and opens his eyes, then closes them. I must have dozed off myself because Monty's voice comes from behind me, the space between the rocker and the wall, and I had been facing the door.

"It is decidedly NOT morning," I say, and lean back so that the chair digs not-so-gently into his abdomen. A ploy: now I can lean my head back and rest it on his chest. Don't think about Monty's abdomen, I think, near-frantic. Last time thoughts of Monty came unbidden with him nearby, I had --erm-- been unable to stand, and I had to sit and pretend to read until my embarrassment subsided.

_Love me,_ I don't say. "Trapped you," I say softly, hoping not to wake the baby. He laughs and struggles.

"I don't know why you bother with that menace," he says, squeezing free of me and barely catching himself on the cradle.

"He likes me," I say, voice bordering on petulant. "And he's cute."

Monty's face clouds for a moment, so quickly I wonder if I could have imagined it. "He's SMALL. There's a difference."

"Ugh, Monty." I try not to betray too much because it would be weirder if I didn't say it than if I did. "Of COURSE you're cute too."

He smiles that smile, and it kills me in multiple ways to see the corner that lags behind its twin, where his father's ring had struck his mouth a month ago. _It makes me look roguish_ , he insisted at the time, but I could see the defeat in his eyes when he looked in the mirror, and the way he's figured out how to artfully hide that side of his face in shadow when he flirts in the bars. He brushes hair away from his face, and -- _no_ \-- there are fresh marks blooming red and purple on his wrist. Too late, he fidgets a sleeve down over them.

There're too many things I'm holding in my head, and Monty must see their fruitless shuffle in my eyes because he says, "it's not-" at the same time as I say "When?" And he looks ready to deny it, but something stops him because his brows knit and he digs his nails into his palm. "Don't worry about me, darling," he says over a dry chuckle. "I've handled it."

I stand, carefully, and lower the baby into his cradle. He does not wake, all right angles and chubby limbs.

"Let's go," I say, not sure where, not sure that it matters.

"Yeah, great. Smashing," he says, hoarse, not quite quiet enough. We end up in the greenhouse. He pulls himself up onto a wobbly shelf and nearly upsets some manner of geranium. "Stop looking at me like that, I can't stand it." I could pretend I have no idea what he's talking about. But I do. And I have absolutely no room to pretend I wouldn't want the same in his situation, for reasons that I cannot begin to think about around the huge and crushing realization that if he stays, this will keep happening. If he stays, his father will kill him.

And that would kill me.

"I know, I'm sorry," I say, twitching an eyebrow at him. "You're not some helpless babe." He nods, and I get the feeling that I'm reaching out to something feral and afraid inside him. "Just, it's completely shit, what he does."

"I know,and it's just there's--" he's silent for a long time, and then he says, "can we stop talking about it?"

"Yeah." I lean against the dirty glass.

"It's just I don't need you to keep reminding me that the rest of my life is destined to be completely shit?" His voice raises like a question. Like a challenge.

"You've only just graduated, surely you have-- when do you start working for him?" I manage. I step closer to him, carefully, but not like I'm trying to be careful. It's delicate and I think I come off just lifting my knees too high. Luckily, just now he doesn't seem to be able to notice.

"I don't know, but I don't suppose it matters?" His voice is high, and his laugh wheezes like it's fought past tears in order to escape. "God, sorry. I'm a right raincloud aren't I," he chuckles, this one dark and low. He takes my hand, and I feel lightning course through me and land somewhere in my center, right and terrifying and so, so good. His eyes fix on mine. I fall apart. "And look at you, poor Perce, haven't had a bite to eat since that ungodly hour you insist on getting up at?" He pulls me a little closer to him, which is strange because I can tell he's putting up a wall at the same time. And I can't help myself, I stumble forward to where he's perched, falling into his arms and holding him tight against protests of "come now," and "it's only breakfast" and "that's really not necessary," and finally "are you all right, Perce?"

I shake my head, because whenever I shut my eyes I can see Felicity in the black veil she wore to her aunt's funeral, and I imagine his father whispering to his associates about how Henry IV had lost his way and fallen in with the wrong crowd and wasn't it tragic and his mother, stubbornly silent and distant.

Worst of all, I see the wax-like face of Henry IV with all the Monty gone from it, motionless in what his parents decide is his best jacket and shirt, covering the caved ribs- except I wouldn't even be there, I'd get a letter from Felicity, or my aunt and uncle, which would be delivered to Holland's best permanent placement medical institution.

And he holds me back, tentatively at first, then tight, almost hurting. And he smells indescribable and perfect. He touches my hair and he says, "it's going to be okay, you know. It was always going to be this, and I've known that. It's just I wish I could..."

"You could what?" My voice is muffled by his shoulder.

"It's stupid."

"Tell me anyway."

"I just wish I could do like Sinjon did when he graduated and go off and see the world for a while before settling in." He taps his fingers on my back, and so I can tell he's either thinking hard or nervous.

"Like.. on tour?" And why not? Hope, ugly and desperate, claws up from my belly in the shape of a half-formed plan. I'd mention it casually to my aunt, who would bring it up with Uncle, who would discuss it with Henri III because if the respectable thing to do when your young gentlemen leave school also means I won't be at risk of falling over at a dinner party and terrifying their guests, so much the better. "Monty, you're brilliant," I breathe, and pull away, looking directly into his face for once as he dangles his feet off the shelf and for a blissful moment our mouths are close and I think he might kiss me, but then I realize that the bitter smell in the air is not, as I had thought, the geraniums. And at the same Felicity is calling him from the yard, sounding rather annoyed. He gives me a strange, searching look, opens his mouth, closes it, and runs to her as my vision disintegrates and reassembles.

I feel fear.

I feel relief.

I feel awful.

I know I don't have long, so I lay down carefully under the table, close my eyes, and lose the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you next time, folx
> 
> Take care
> 
> plz let me know if I'm doing any of these customs wrong, I am an ancient creature new to the ways of Ao3 and fanfic and eager to learn


	3. Not the type to sleep alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Upon encountering Percy in the greenhouse, Felicity must be sworn to secrecy.
> 
> Monty makes poor decisions with a certain R*ch*rd P**l*.

Green, gauzy light soaks through my sleep and I wake with a familiar, bruisy feeling.   
It's not even a little bit of a mystery what happened. A seizure. A goddamn fit. My muscles are exhausted, and my eyes feel like they can barely open. Before I can check my thoughts, a primal yearning for Monty's hand on my forehead, his skin against mine as he calls me "darling" rears its head and it is hard to quash. No. It's good I can't hear him. I need to tell him before he sees. I just need-- 

I try to move, and a wave of exhaustion hits me so strongly that I almost go under again. The green light is strange, as in the low wooden ceiling above me. Where I am _is_ a bit of a mystery. I'm alone. Thank God.

"The tongue is attached to the body by a series of extrinsic muscles, but its shape is controlled by the intrinsic muscles that make up the visible portion of the tongue. Do you hear that, hyacinths? There's a whole system of pulleys that we can't see holding the tongue in place. Of course, you have roots instead." A sound of water falling from a can disproves my latest theory. I am not alone. Memories of the greenhouse come flooding back to me, the Tour, Monty's arm, laying under a table so that I wouldn't fall and hurt myself. And now here I am in the company of none other than Felicity Montague, who is watering plants, speaking some nonsense about tongues and machinery, and who is in imminent danger of stepping on my hand. 

"Felicity," I croak, and she startles. I had expected her to shriek: Monty would have shrieked. But Felicity is hewn from a different material than is her brother, and she simply jumps out of the way, then kneels in a way that will certainly dirty her skirts, to look under the table. "Hallo," I say in that same croaky voice. It hurts to talk, as if I had been using muscles in my throat unaccustomed to being taxed.

"Percy Newton," Felicity says in her most practical information-gathering voice. "What in the world could you _possibly_ be doing that would explain why you are lying on the ground, covered in dust, in my family's greenhouse?" When I don't answer right away, she continues.  
"I'm sure you know you look like death warmed over. Were you in a fight? Are you injured?"  
"Sort of. And I don't know."   
She sobers. "Oh. Can you get up? I'd like to have a look at you."  
"Why?"  
"Trust me." So I do. I grab her wrists and lean heavily on her, pulling myself out from under the table with what feels like incredible effort. The Montagues are a smallish clan, and Felicity the smallest of all, but she is sturdier than I would have given her credit for. She gets me seated, head between my knees, and I start to breathe deep, grateful breaths as she listens to my back, looks at my arms and legs, and touches my head under my hair to see if it's tender. With my wrist clamped between her thumb and two forefingers, she delivers her assessment.  
"You're bruised up and down, but nothing looks too serious. What happened, Percy? Monty didn't--”

"Of course not!" I say, horrified. And there's no choice, really, so I tell her about the fits, my Uncle, the asylum, everything. By the time I'm done, the sun is low in the sky. "Please, don't tell Monty," I finish, cringing inwardly at the petulance creeping into my voice. Her expression is not what I expect in the least. The pity I dread is completely absent and in fact, I would hesitate to call her expression  
anything other than fascinated.   
"You're a real epileptic then?" She asks. Her hand is still on my wrist, light and clinical. I take comfort in the impersonal touch. "How did you know the word? I never said 'epileptic', did I?"   
"You're not the only one who reads, Mr. Newton," she scoffs. "Epilepsy is an incurable disorder characterized by involuntary fits of muscle spasming which are triggered by light, smells, or an imbalance of humours. Institutionalization is a bit of a medieval reaction to such a condition, though, don't you think?" I can't even say anything. _Is it?_ I want to ask. _Why?What sort of life do you think could have? Could I_ have _a life? A title, a house? A partner?_ But of course I ask none of this because how would Felicity, closeted medical enthusiast though she may be, know? She sniffs, clearly pleased with herself, and adds as an afterthought, "why again am I not to tell Monty? I thought you two shared a brain."   
I feel a little twinge of guilt. "I want to tell him. I'm just, not ready, you know?"  
"Not ready? For what, exactly?" She brushes halfheartedly at the mess of her skirts, and stands, motioning for me to do the same. I grab her hand and pull myself to my feet, swaying slightly. And suddenly, I'm ravenous.  
"It's quite possible that he won't be too keen on the idea that I've kept this from him all these years. Mostly I don't want him to look at me like I'm broken?" That last part is even more honest than I intended on being, and I swallow as if to call them back, though of course it does no good. Instead, I say, "I should be going. They'll be done dining at home by now, but I should be able to slip into the kitchens and get something if I'm quick about it."

In the moonlight, Felicity's braids are dark whips as she shakes her head with emphasis. "Under no circumstance," she says sharply, "are you to leave these grounds tonight, Percy Newton. We will get you tea and biscuits from our kitchens, and when you feel revitalized enough to attempt the stairs, you shall go and pester my brother into finding you a place to sleep for the night.   
I'm too tired to argue, and so I lean on Felicity as we stumble into one of the lesser parlors of the house and let her order me hot minty tea and truly delightful shortbread biscuits, which I consume with a level of decorum that would send my old governess into an apoplectic fit.

I feel wobbly, although decidedly more fortified, as I climb the stairs and try Monty's door handle without knocking as a matter of habit.

Only to stare into the lamplit, horrified face of Richard Peele as he stands naked as the day he was born by Monty's bed, the only thing covering his particulars being, unfortunately, Monty's dear, unkempt bedhead as he heedlessly continues the business of pleasuring the man I hate most in this world. "Newton?" Richard says, his voice unbearably vulnerable.

I shut the door quickly, feeling heat flood my face. There's a muffled gasp, then a whine.  
"Get out," I hear Monty say tersely.  
"But I haven't-"  
"I could not care in the slightest what you have or haven't done. Get your things and _leave."_  
"You're a common whore, Montague. I hope you choke on his-"   
"He said get out," I say suddenly from this side of the closed door. " Did you not attend, or are you simply as stupid as you look?"  
Richard Peele slams through the door, his shirt hastily tucked into his trousers, breeches still showing. "Enjoy my leftovers," he sneers, throwing one last disparaging look over his shoulder at Monty, whose knees are tucked into his chest and who looks heartbreakingly tiny on his giant bed.  
"It's not like that," I shout after him, feeling clumsy, my face burning. He scoffs and stamps down the stairs. I consider yelling after him to keep quiet so he doesn't wake the baby, and decide my shouting would be louder than any stomping he chooses to do. I'm tired and irritable, and so I say without a trace of the humor I intended: "don't stop the party on my account."  
"Perce, don't," Monty says, and his voice crackles with something like regret.  
"What, interrupt you and Peele? May I remind you that I was perfectly fine shutting the door and pretending none of it ever happened. You're the one who had to go and kick up a fuss." I don't know why I'm angry. I just know that my heart is beating very fast, and my chest hurts with every contraction, and I feel betrayed.  
"No." He is very quiet. He won't look at me. "Don't lecture me." His face is beautiful in its anguish. His brow is knitted, and his eyelashes contrast starkly with his cheeks. His lips-- but no, we don't talk about Monty's lips. And I hate the quickness with which I have come to be able to quash that train of thought. Because I have to. Richard Peele apparently can think about Monty's lips all he wants.  
"Okay. I _hate_ Richard Peele," I say, but the anger has faded into a dull but familiar emotion I know as jealousy. And we cannot have that.  
"He's nice to me. You can come in if you want," he says, and I am indeed still standing half in his doorway, so I sit on the rug at the food of his bed. He flops onto his stomach, eyes still determinedly fixed on he ground, and it feels like the world's least comfortable stay-over.  
"Monts, he just called you a... A very not-nice name."  
"Like you weren't thinking it."  
Alas, my silence betrays me. I had, for a split second, thought it was ridiculous that Monty couldn't keep his damn front door closed when it came to sex. I had thought, in the coldest part of my heart, why would he get on his knees for Richard bloody Peele but not for me? Hadn't I?

"You're not. You're marvelous, Monts. Richard bloody Peele should be so grateful as to have you wipe your shoes on his face, let alone be the subject of your attentions for even a moment."   
"Dangerous to feed an ego the size of mine, darling." And all the defenses are back in a moment, sparkling eyes, dimples set to high. "You didn't see any of... Anything, did you? I suppose we'll have to gouge your eyes out, just to be safe." I laugh, relieved, because although I'd like to press him on a few choice matters, I'm so damn tired. I laugh because he knows his charm works on me, because it ALWAYS works on me. Bless him, he doesn't even ask what I was doing unannounced at his door in the first place.  
"I love you, Monty," I say under my breath as I change into the sleep shirt I keep under his bed for these exact occasions. He turns away respectfully, and strips right down to his breeches.  
"What's that, dearest?"  
"I said I'm sorry about Richard."  
He scoffs. "You are not. And neither am I. So get in bed, you dear old maiden aunt. Protecting my virtue looks to have worn you out rather entirely." 

In the darkness, I stay awake for less than a minute before sleep takes me to a place without dreams. That is, until I hear the screaming.


	4. Night terrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monty has night terrors.

"Monty."  
He won't wake up, but the sounds he's making are jarringly loud and all too familiar in the halls of House Montague.  
"hey. Hey, come back, Montague. Nothing there but heartache and old dreams." 

The words come familiar and unbidden and I don't know exactly when I started saying that to him. Sometime around when I first started staying over at Monty's. Back when I had sort of started to put together the nightmares and the marks and the way he jumped whenever his father looked at him.

Monty tenses under my hand as I rub circles on his back. This elicits a whimper, quiet and plaintive, and I hope against hope that he's stopped in time, that his father won't have reason to call him into his study in the morning.

"Come back," he repeats. The words smush into his pillow.  
"Yeah, come back, Monty. You're safe here. Just a bad dream, is all. Can you hear me?"  
"Mmhmm." He's on the edge of sleep. Tangled in the sheets.  
"Was it bad?"  
"Mmhmm." He rolls, and suddenly his face is a nose away from mine. His eyelashes flutter, but his face is a mask of sleep-- unaware, soft...beautiful. Monty curls into me, and it's my turn to stiffen.  
Were we younger, it might be different. Were I not thinking of him late into every blessed night in various unholy ways, I could take him into my arms for all the right reasons and not fall apart.

"Sorry," I whisper, attempting to detach myself, getting twisted around in the sheets myself in the process.

It takes some finagling, not being entirely awake myself, but by the time sleep takes me, we end up under the coverlet proper, backs pressed together, his legs stubbornly twined with my own no matter how I try and configure them.

It is the best possible feeling.

It is also the worst.

**Author's Note:**

> First post | goodness what a well done work of fiction tggtvav is | please enjoy | if I get an kudo does that mean I'm famous | please advise


End file.
